Tips for housing birds indoors
A room dedicated to the safe and healthy flight of birds at G’day Birdie Sanctuary
Believe it or not, back in the beginning, before our first aviary, we had two rescue budgies in an indoor flight cage.
While we are lucky enough to live in Australia where the climate is pretty much perfect for the birds, we know other places aren't so fortunate and their birds are safest indoors.
With this in mind, here's a few tips to make life indoors as healthy, safe, fulfilling - and still natural - for your birds, as possible.
- Find a cage that is wider than it is tall - or at least a big one if it's square. A crazy number of cages are taller than they are wide, which limits the flight room for their occupants (budgies, for example, fly side to side).
I questioned a manufacturer about this once and their response was that, in catering for their customer base, it's easier to fit tall cages in houses. No mention of the needs of the bird.
- Cages should be placed in a corner or against a wall; with the family; and at ‘human’ level. This is for their comfort and security. Birds should be with their human flock, in the middle of the activity (at night, cages can be covered or moved to a quiet room). Placing cages on the ground can cause anxiety for a prey bird (like parrots, finches, canaries, and other small birds) who keep to heights in the wild for safety.
- Place safe branches at each end of the cage, for your birds to fly between. When they are in the cage (they should get plenty of flight time outside the cage each day) it's important for them to have the ability to fly properly.
- Replace the dowel or plastic perches that many cages come with, with safe natural perches (these can be from your garden from bird-safe plants, or many bird stores sell online). Dowel can still be used, but best not as the favoured perching spot, since they do nothing for birds' leg/nail health.
- Place food and water containers as far as possible away from poop zones. ('As possible', since I know some birds will just use the containers as perches... sigh). Birds like to be high, so having containers high is beneficial for both reasons! (Many cages are designed with containers close to the bottom, which again makes me question the research that has gone into birds' needs.)
- Foraging trays are great for enrichment. Just because they're indoors, doesn't mean they can't have this opportunity - it's important that they do. Wide shallow rectangular trays or boxes, with different substrate (safe soil or pine shavings, or shredded paper, for example), and treats or foraging toys hidden throughout. These can be bought online or found in the garden from bird-safe plants.
- No smelly/scented items near the birds. That includes scented candles, essential oils, household chemicals etc. Birds have sensitive and fragile respiratory systems and these items can be incredibly toxic to them.
- No cooking with non-stick pans around birds (honestly safer just to have birds well away from the kitchen). Non-stick cookware often contains Teflon, which can be highly toxic to birds ('Teflon toxicity' or 'PTFE poisoning/toxicosis).
- Provide foraging areas on the bottom of the cage. We always place paper on top of bars at the bottom, for the birds to move around on, with some foliage or other enrichment. Wintergrass is also great for this.
- Provide safe encirhcment through foliage and/or bird-safe toys. Foliage is always our recommendation, but living in Australia, this is easy for us to access and we know it's safe for the birds. For others who it may be more difficult for, purchasing toys may be the easiest or only option. Avoid rope (risk of crop impaction from chewing; strangulation; broken limbs from getting caught) and plastic (offers no real benefit and not great for the environment), as well as mirrors, which can trigger hormonal behaviour and aggression in birds. I call mirrors 'fake friends', which just feels cruel.
In terms of bird-safe toys, we love the stuff from A Bird A Day (post not sponsored by them). All natural, well made, and made to be destroyed. If a toy is effective and enjoyed, it will be destroyed.
- Provide safe, supervised outdoor time in the sun. Believe it or not, sunlight through windows doesn't actually provide birds with the goodness they'd get outside - the glass blocks UVB/Vitamin D, which is important for birds’ health. This is why supervised outdoor time (in an enclosure or harness, if trained) is important; or at least providing a UVB light indoors for them.
- Be wary of ceiling fans in bird flight areas. It may seem obvious, but there's been a surprising number of tragedies as a result of birds flying into fans.
- Provide ample flight time in a room or area safe from other animals. There may be viral videos of birds playing well with other animals (especially dogs and cats) but this is one trigger, bit of enthusiasm, or other movement away from tragedy.
- Ensure windows and doors are closed. This is to prevent escapes, which is probably obvious. Many people are also concerned about birds flying into glass/transparent doors and windows. Thankfully, birds are pretty intelligent, and are generally quick to learn flight paths and safe areas to go. Providing landing points for them (natural stands, sticks on walls and whatnot) can help.
- Be careful with plants. Birds love foliage and chewing, and may be quick to explore any house plants around the area. It's important to only have safe plants around them (info can be found on Google, from your local nursery, or plant enthusiast Facebook groups). They definitely don't discriminate between what is safe and not, so don't assume they'll recognise and ignore unsafe plants.
This definitely isn't an exhaustive list, and we hopefully haven't missed anything too important - please let us know if we have, or if there's anything you'd add!
Credit to the wonderful G’day Birdie Sanctuary for use of their image.
